How to Start an Online Business with AI (Step-by-Step Guide for 2025)
Turn your ideas into a thriving business with AI
AI, or artificial intelligence could be the best co-founder for your business.
Starting an online business has never been easier.
And yet, paradoxically, it’s never felt more overwhelming.
There are so many moving parts —
- researching ideas,
- validating demand,
- building a product, and
- marketing it.
As a first-time founder, it’s easy to get stuck in analysis paralysis.
But what if you had an intelligent assistant guiding you through every step? It could handle the research, ask the right questions, and give you a structured plan to execute.
Sounds too good to be true?
Enter Buildpad, an AI-powered business companion that takes the guesswork out of entrepreneurship. Buildpad’s AI can help you move faster, work smarter, and build something people actually want.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through a step-by-step process to start an online business with AI. I’m using my own experience with Buildpad as an example. By the end, you’ll see how AI can be your business partner in the making.
Step 1: How AI Helps You Identify a Profitable Business Idea
Buildpad has an interactive AI that talks with you and helps you identify the problem. You need to provide details about what problem you’re trying to solve, and the AI will do the research for you. It will help you validate if this is a real problem that many people face.
I’ve always thought of building a business around my publication, Books Are Our Superpower, but was never able to do so. When I came across Buildpad, I thought this is the perfect opportunity to test my idea and turn it into a viable business.
I explained my problem in detail to the Buildpad AI, and it did some comprehensive research for me. This is where I was stuck all these years. I knew my idea had potential, but I wasn’t sure how viable it would be in the real world. Having someone else with more experience do it for was the hand-holding I needed at this stage in my entrepreneurial journey.
Buildpad’s AI then spent a good chunk of an hour doing deep research across multiple locations on the internet.
Then, it came up with a conclusion that my concept addresses a need that’s well-documented across the internet —
“Your BAOS Book Club concept addresses a real, documented need. Many readers express feelings of isolation and a desire for a community to discuss books with, and the evidence shows they’re actively seeking solutions through online forums, book clubs, and other means to connect with fellow readers.”
This research phase is where most founders get it wrong. They’re either caught up in rabbit holes where all they do is overthink and overplan, or they’re so intimidated by the prospect of hours of research, that they don’t even start.
Having an AI assistant do the grunt work for you is a blessing. Buildpad can be that gift to your entrepreneurial journey, if you’re ready to embrace it.
Step 2: Use AI to Create a Product That Sells
After identifying a problem with potential, the next step is to define a product that directly addresses this problem and fits the market.
Buildpad helps founders come up with a clear product page that will serve as a foundation for future validation and marketing.
This is where things get serious with Buildpad. You won’t be having casual chats anymore. The questions the AI asks will really force you to think, to consider aspects of your business you might not have considered before. This phase takes up significant amount of brainstorming, so I’d suggest go through it with a clear head and some time on your hands.
It’s like having someone to bounce your ideas off. The AI asks attentive questions and understands your idea deeply. After multiple rounds of questions and cross questions, the AI will come up with a product page for you.
Here’s what Buildpad came up with for my BAOS Book Club idea —
Step 3: How AI Helps You Find the Right Customers
The next step is to learn more about who your product is for. Having a deep understanding of your target audience will help you in every step of the product-building process.
Buildpad advises to think of your target audience as real people, not just numbers or data points. The more specific you can be about who they are, what they need, and why they need it, the better you can serve them with your product.
In this phase, you’ll generate a user persona, including essential information about your target audience such as —
- their goals,
- pain points,
- objections, and
- where you can reach them.
For Buildpad’s AI to give you an accurate audience persona, you need to know your audience really well, like —
- What occupations they have
- What online or offline places they spend the most time at
- What outcomes or experiences are they seeking
- What potential objections or hesitations they might have about using your product
You need to think hard on these questions. Once you’ve provided the answers, Buildpad’s AI will create a user persona based on the information you’ve provided.
Based on my brainstorming and understanding of my audience, Buildpad created a user persona for BAOS Book Club —
Step 4: AI-Powered Ways to Validate Demand for Your Business Idea
Once your ideal audience is identified, the next step is reaching out to real people to confirm there is genuine interest. This is the phase where you’ll gather concrete evidence of demand for your product.
Buildpad helps by creating a list of questions you can send to people so you can collect data. It also helps you brainstorm how best you can reach potential customers you can pose these questions to —
- Which channels would be most effective for you to reach your target audience?
- How much time can you dedicate weekly to reaching out to potential customers?
- Do you have any existing connections in reading communities that you could leverage?
- What would be a reasonable goal for the number of responses you’d like to collect to verify demand?
After that, Buildpad created a 4-week Action Plan for me to follow. This included 5 priorities and how much time I should spend on each priority doing what. It also gave me a list of best practices to keep in mind as I conduct my research.
It also gave me tips for crafting a good outreach message, identifying possible places where customers might hang out, and a way to track my responses.
Step 5: Create a Winning Business Plan with AI
This is the phase where you’ll focus on developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) — the simplest version of your product that delivers core value to users.
Your plan will outline what needs to be built, development priorities and your timeline. With a clear plan in place, you will build faster, make better decisions, and keep your development on track.
You think you have it all sorted, but then, Buildpad asks you the most important question —
“What timeline are you looking at for launching the BAOS Book Club? Do you have a specific date in mind for when you’d like to start accepting members?”
Obviously, “soon” won’t work as an answer here, so you need to be specific. And when you’re specific, you’ll stop procrastinating.
This is where you’ll ask Buildpad for the exact help and guidance you need. You can ask it for tutorials, links, and content based on what you need. You’ll get all the help you need to build your MVP with this phase of Buildpad.
I asked Buildpad for help with marketing strategies, and it gave me a pretty solid plan —
After we had all bases covered, Buildpad took a few minutes to create a development plan for me. This is how the final plan looked like —
Step 6: How to Use AI to Build & Launch Your Product Faster
In this phase you’ll work together with Buildpad’s AI to build your product.
You might need to adjust the plan based on new insights, and that’s okay, as long as you stay aligned with the user needs and insights you uncovered earlier.
This is typically the longest phase of your journey, but you’ll receive guidance throughout. Soon you’ll have a product ready to share with the world.
This step typically takes the longest time.
But once it’s done, you’ll have your product ready to launch and market to your target audience.
Step 7: AI Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business Faster
Marketing is arguably the most important phase in the life cycle of a product. Buildpad will help you build a marketing strategy, which serves as your roadmap to reaching your first goal.
Before that, the AI will ask you some pertinent questions you need to really think hard and answer, like —
- How many hours per week can you realistically dedicate to marketing activities for your product?
- How many paying members would you like to acquire in the first month after launch?
- What marketing budget do you have available for the first month of promotion?
- What social media platforms are you most comfortable using, and where do you already have a presence or following?
Then, based on your answers, Buildpad will go into depth and help you brainstorm a detailed marketing plan that’s best-suited to your product, your target audience, and your strengths as a founder.
Here’s a glimpse at the action plan Buildpad designed for me —
Once you approve the action plan, Buildpad will detail the immediate next steps for week 1. It will list 3 priorities for the week, and go deeper depending on which step you need the most help.
Why AI is the Future of Online Business Success
If you’ve ever dreamed of starting an online business but felt lost in the details, this is your moment.
AI has changed the game, making it possible for aspiring founders to validate, build, and market a product without the usual headaches. Buildpad is a strategy coach, research assistant, and business consultant rolled into one.
Instead of spending months overthinking, you can get clarity in hours. Instead of struggling alone, you can have AI guiding you with actionable steps.
The future of entrepreneurship is AI-powered — and you don’t want to be left behind.
So, if you’re serious about launching your idea, why not let AI do the heavy lifting? Try Buildpad today and start building your dream business with confidence.
Stop dreaming — start building! Sign up for Buildpad today and take the first step toward launching your AI-powered online business.
